As I assumed my executive position this fall, I grabbed a copy of the Faculty of Science’s “Curriculum Guide” and packed it in the first box to be relocated to the executive office. The guidebook begins with the Graduate School and Faculty of Science’s educational philosophy, and how to integrate this philosophy into our school curriculum was our long-time quest. The Graduate School and Faculty of Science values academic freedom, which is also imprinted as Kyoto University’s motto, therefore offers students the freedom to tailor their study to their academic interests and needs. Likewise, up until the 1990s, there were no compulsory courses in the Faculty of Science, based on an assumption that talented and highly motivated students would be able to guide themselves to study of their own free will. I think this system works well with highly motivated students, whereas it should be challenging for the students who entered the school without a clear academic plan. So, for talented and highly motivated students, we leave them to decide their direction of study from the beginning. Even with the CAP system, the Faculty of Science allows students to register for maximum credit hours of 34 for the spring semester of the freshman year, so they can gain a basic yet broad understanding of different disciplines at the onset of their academic life. From the fall semester of the freshman year onward, we do not set an upper limit on the number of credits students can register for, on the condition that they have earned at least 16 credits of As or higher in the previous semester. Under the system, while we do not have to worry so much about talented and highly motivated students, we should care and support extensively for those students who entered the university without a specific purpose and those who have fallen behind.

As depicted in the manga “Let’s Play with Numbers,” many students in the Faculty of Science experience a stumbling block in their first year of mathematics. Honestly, I was one of them. In my first-year mathematics class, the professor abruptly said, “Only 50% of you will pass my course.” His course was thus hard. I couldn’t catch up with the class at all. In reality, this is where the first hurdle lies. Under such circumstances, who extends a helping hand and saves students from falling behind are their classmates and faculty members. To help establish such a communication channel for students, the Faculty of Science assigns a mentor to a small group of students. Mentors carefully pay attention to the students with poor performance, and occasionally set up a meeting to talk with them and their parents together, especially if a student fails to proceed to the upper year or if a student’s grades drop significantly. This approach has been well perceived despite that students meet their mentors only twice a year during their first and second years. It helps students get used to the new environment quickly, and they can opt to study under their mentors if they find it difficult to start a new major from the third year on. While most students, even those with poor performance, come to talk with their mentors, we have had a hard time convincing some students who do not show up for counseling. At the end of the second year, students select one of the five majors to study more professional courses. We take time to hold guidance sessions on each division and explain their policies and goals several times to navigate students’ decision making. The second hurdle that typical students in the Faculty of Science stumble at comes in the winter of the first year of the Master’s program. Most undergraduate students who directly proceed to the graduate program do not start looking for a job until the winter of their first year in the Master’s program. They then start job hunting, but some feel depressed as they realize that they are not the ideal candidate that companies are looking for.

The Department of Science is the only department housed in the Faculty of Science, and the graduation thesis course (“research project”) is the only compulsory course for the undergraduate program. In the first two years, students are given opportunities to explore various academic disciplines and develop fundamental knowledge and skills, rather than focusing on a specialized field at an early stage. This is what is called “late specialization,” a strategy taken to help students shape their professional goals from their learning experience. For this purpose, students are encouraged to organize “self-directed seminars,” where they set their own research themes and present their findings. We support their efforts by making seminar rooms available for their use, and by participating in student-organized journal clubs. I myself organized self-directed seminars when I was an undergraduate student. In my first year, I asked one assistant professor to join me with reading journals. In my third year, I found a specific topic that I was interested in studying, so I asked my professor and assistant professor for their guidance. They kindly suggested one English book and said, “Let’s read this book together.” I really appreciate their dedication and professionalism. Generally, during the first and second years, students find out where their aptitudes lie and observe their performances in the classroom, to get ready to go to the next stage. They may experience setbacks along the way, but nevertheless, what we can do to support their academic life is to ensure their communication with classmates and faculty members, and to help them navigate systematically as they discover themselves in their studies.

Responding to students’ diverse needs is one of our biggest challenges. In recent years, Kyoto University students’ academic levels, background, and reasons for dropping out of school have become very diverse. One of the responsibilities I took over from Dr. Kitano, the former Executive Vice-President for Education, is a council named C-ENGINE (Collaborative Education for Next-Generation Innovators & Exploration of Knowledge Intersections). There, I had a chance to talk with a person from a corporate background. He told me that there is a “2:6:2” rule applied to the staff composition of corporate organizations. He added, “The top 20 % is excellent, the middle 60% is functional if properly trained, and we don’t care for the bottom 20%.” This rule, however, does not apply to university education, leaving the bottom 20% unattended. Now I feel the pressing need to build a support system for the students in the bottom 20% range. One idea to do so is to improve the services of the Counseling Center. While some students come to the Center for counseling by themselves, some others do not have the guts to do so. What is even worse, the new coronavirus pandemic forced students to study from home and attend classes online. Consequently, some of them could not accommodate themselves well in the new learning environment and ended up not showing up for the entire spring semester. Our other challenge is how to motivate students. In normal times, I hold a welcome party as soon as new third-year students join my lab and help them make friends easily. My plot is to motivate the students who are allocated to my lab as their second preference. By working in groups through field research activities and making memories together with lab mates, students gradually get used to their new surroundings. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has deprived students of their chances to network with new friends, and I am worried about what this abnormal situation may entail. In the end, there are no right or wrong answers as to what to do with the students in the bottom 20%. All we can do is to make steady efforts. They may change for the better if we give them a little push to step forward. I can proudly say that students at Kyoto University are generally highly talented, but some students may stumble because they haven’t had the opportunity to fulfil their potential, or they are wondering where their weaknesses lie. Some students may have entered Kyoto University unwillingly as they couldn’t get into the department of their first choice, and some may be extra picky about what to study at which department and major. Like so, students’ needs have become diverse. All in all, our missions as a university are to find a way to eliminate their stumbling blocks, and to motivate them to reach their potential in any way possible.

The academic year 2020 was a hard year for first-year students to get to know each other. At a symposium that I recently attended, it was pointed out that virtual face-to-face classes during the pandemic posed a crisis for first-year students as they failed to make new friends, which is a very important social aspect of student life. I had a chance to talk with one professor who decided to conduct all his classes online for the spring semester 2020 sometime around February. He said that face-to-face classes should be resumed despite challenges, as he saw students happily coming back to class in the fall semester. In some of the joint academic programs that Kyoto University students participated in, they had to give up on attending classes which were held only on-site for training, but not online. As the pandemic raged on, we received reports from different departments that the number of students who have lost their motivation to attend online classes or laboratory experiments increased, and that there are many students who do not dare to go for counseling. Our counseling room staff have done a great job, but that may not be enough. In addition to the counseling room service, I would like each and every department to continue its efforts to follow up on the students who are in need of counseling, while practicing COVID-19 preventive measures. At the Faculty of Science, for example, a counseling office was set up, and the office has held weekly consultations on the LINE app. Students participating in the consultations exchange messages and encourage each other to keep up their motivation. We also asked our faculty members to maximize the small-group mentor framework to facilitate interactions among students.

Likewise, I would like to ask each department to do all they can to create open lines of communication and networking for their students, while rigidly following COVID-19 protocols. In April 2020, the Faculty of Science created a hangout spot in a less populated area of the building, and gave autonomy in the management of the area to about 10 of the students who visit the counseling office. As the COVID-19 evolved further, the physical hangout spot was temporarily closed, but since then, the members have hosted a LINE chat room on a weekly basis to exchange each other’s updates. That’s how they have maintained their motivation. Our responsibility is thus to create a platform where students feel comfortable to meet new friends and chat. If the faculty members in every department mentor about 10 students each as a class or unit, students will be able to gradually expand their network and stay motivated to study at Kyoto University.